Letter: Primary results in loss to community

It is unfortunate that due to the last Republican primary election, the town of Saratoga will soon lose several valuable programs. The town justice who was voted out of office, David Mathis, had developed many programs highly beneficial to the town.

These include the "Science of Speeding" class for those receiving low-level speeding tickets. The class provided an education alternative to fines and points. It worked. Think about the number of accidents 10 years ago as opposed to the frequency and severity of traffic accidents today.

He also developed an undergraduate judicial intern program that was the best in the state and maybe in the country. The program received the Bar Association's Liberty Bell Award in 2009.

The program has graduated 121 interns and has four more in the program now. It will end soon because the incoming judge does not have a college degree (he said he is working on his bachelor's degree).

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Judge Mathis taught college immediately before taking the bench. Another 70 to 80 of our children could have had a judicial internship with our court over the next four years, but the program will be gone.

For many years, the town has had community service sentences that had many young defendants washing and waxing fire trucks, mowing cemeteries, cleaning police cars and performing other tasks that benefit the community.

The incoming judge indicated he does not feel this is working.

The court now has a program, "Sit in Class or Sit in Jail," for young unemployed high school dropouts. It allows the defendant to return to class or enroll in a GED class to avoid jail. The program results in them having a greatly increased opportunity for employment and avoiding a costly revolving door relationship with the court system. The program was covered in the January 2012 issue of the judicial magazine "The Docket."

Mathis has demonstrated that courts can be much more than just revenue collection centers. As for the county budget, he has written grants for more than his total salary.

The feedback from several people indicates the Republicans turned against him due to him performing same-sex marriages. What many people seem to not know is that a judge who regularly performs marriages and refuses to perform same-sex marriages can be removed from office by the state for discrimination.

This is the same mechanism that the state can use to remove judges who refuse to perform interfaith marriages and interracial marriages. The state has no exemption for religious objections; the state does not tolerate discrimination.

Will the Republicans now turn against the clerk who sold the marriage license to the same-sex couple?

We have seen the results of voting obediently by party line rather than by logic, and the town of Saratoga is the loser.